Silverchair has released its 2026 Future of Peer Review Report, a comprehensive analysis of the state of peer review drawing on eight years of ScholarOne submission and review data, a survey of more than 2,000 reviewers, authors, and editors, and interviews with industry experts.
The report finds a system under accumulating strain rather than in outright collapse. The global reviewer pool grew 54% between 2018 and 2025, yet acceptance rates fell by nearly half over the same period. It now takes an average of 4.5 invitations to secure a single review — up from 2.3 in 2018. Submissions to ScholarOne journals increased 33% in the first quarter of 2026 alone compared to the same period last year.
The report explores the structural drivers behind these trends, including geographic disparities in reviewer engagement, the growing cost of non-engagement, research integrity pressures, and AI’s complicated and expanding role across the peer review lifecycle. It concludes with four scenario frameworks for where scholarly publishing could go from here, from managed evolution to decentralized disruption.
Because ScholarOne processes roughly one in four scholarly articles published worldwide, the patterns visible in this dataset carry structural weight for the industry as a whole.
The full, free report is available for download here: https://www.silverchair.com/news/future-of-peer-review-2026/
Member News Release submitted by Silverchair on 05/19/2026.
